SAN FRANCISCO: Googlehas removed over 500 apps that included mobile games for teenagers from its Play Storeon account of a spyware threat.
Search giant Google recently threw out as many as 41 Android apps from its Play Store. Many of these apps had over 5 million downloads. The apps are claimed to be behind what may be one of the biggest-ever Android ad fraud. It is also been termed as one of the most-successful malware discovered on Google Play Store yet in terms of app installs. Dubbed Judy, the malware was found by security company Check Point. The malware apps are said to have a rogue code embedded in them that surreptitiously opens web pages in the background. The oldest version of the malware reportedly dates back to April 2016, which means that it managed to avoid detection for over a year. Here are 20 popular Android apps from the list.
The decision came after US-based cyber-security firm Lookout discovered more than 500 apps that could spread spyware on mobile phones, Fortune reported late on Wednesday.
According to Lookout, the apps used certain software that had the ability to covertly siphon people's personal data on their devices without alerting the app makers.
The impacted apps included mobile games for teenagers, weather apps, online radio, photo editing, education, health, fitness and home video camera apps.
The researchers discovered that the 'Igexin' advertising software development kit (SDK) embedded in the apps caused these to communicate with outside servers that had earlier spread malware.
The bug in SDK was discovered when an app appeared to be downloading large, encrypted files from those servers.
Many of the developers of the impacted apps were unaware of the security flaws, the report added.
below are some app that were removed and should be uninstalled from your device;
- fashion judy: show queen style
- Animal judy: parsian cat care
- animal judy: dragon care
- chief judy: hallowen cookies
- animal judy: rabbit care
- fashion judy: vampire style.....and other
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